I have previously stated in no uncertain terms that I believe that a computer mouse should have one button. No more. Period. It’s a pointing device, not a fucking keyboard. However, a shiny new “MIghty Mouse” came bundled with my new Macbook Pro … and in the interests of “ooo, new toy” I have decided to bite the bullet and use it. Fortunately, there is a single-click preference that turns off the bastard right-button and makes the entire clicking surface a single button, as both God and Doug Englebart intended.

But – and this is pretty much the entire gist of the post – there is another button in the mouse preferences that lets the scrollball slide window content up and down and side to side even if the window in question is not in focus at the time. This, I have to say, is fucking brilliant. You can have one window with crucial information behind your current one, sort of peeking out to the side, and then use the scroll ball to slide that “peeking” window up and down as needed to see additional info without switching away from the window that you are currently working in.

Until you have done this and gone “oh, wow, that is about the best thing ever” you won’t really get the gist of it. But trust me, it seriously rocks.

The rumour being pulled around the Canadian newspaper biz – like a tempting-yet-not-overly-tasty piece of taffy – is that CanWest (who pretty much has cornered the market on “fenderheads in upper management”) is going to pull the plug on the National Post at the end of the week.

Will it happen? Maybe, but I am betting not. Yet, anyway. Stay tuned.

In case you were totally asleep and missed it, the Safari 4 beta is out and ready for your downloading pleasure. A few things to note:

• The new tab structure is definitely …. different. And if you hate it, I wouldn’t blame you. But give it a try – after an hour of grumbling, it all suddenly made sense to me and now I quite like it. If you really want to get rid of the “tabs on top” then you can mess with the preference file directly – spark up the Terminal and follow the guidelines here.

• The speed is definitely an eye-opener. If you have the opportunity to use this next to IE7, your head will spin at how much faster it is. Even Chrome comes off looking more than a bit glacial compared to this, and Chrome is (to coin a phrase) fucking fast.

• Beautiful? Oh my yes. Absolutely stunning presentation, and the rendering quality of the new WebKit / Nitro engine is insanely crisp. Mmmmm.

It’s really worth a grab, especially if you are on Leopard. Just gorgeous.